Mountain Days and Bothy Nights

By Dave Brown and Ian R Mitchell

Acknowledged as a classic of mountain writing, this book takes you into the bothies, howffs and dosses on the Scottish hills as Fishgut Mac, Desperate Dan and Stumpy the Big Yin stalk hill and public house, evading gamekeepers and Royalty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luath Press
• Release date: Apr 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912387960

Dave Brown

As an elite-level sales and leadership coach and senior partner for Southwestern Consulting, Dave Brown has trained hundreds of thousands of sales professionals across the globe. A sought-after keynote speaker and certified trainer, Dave strives to help individuals and organizations reach peak performance in business and in life.  Dave has a passion for empowering salespeople everywhere with key principles to make selling more emotionally and financially rewarding. Dave himself knocked on more than 50,000 doors before he was twenty-five. He continues to hold the record for the most customers ever sold for the Southwestern Advantage college program, out of more than 250,000 salespeople.  Since then, he has made more than 200,000 cold calls to companies worldwide. His infectious excitement for helping people achieve their goals in life continuously encourages his audience to embrace their roles with passion, blow through their belief barriers, and achieve unprecedented success. Dave currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Emmie, two sons, and daughter. 

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CHAPTER 1

The Caves of Arrochar

STRUNG OUT UNTIDILY AROUND the east side of the head of Loch Long, its shoreline often covered with tidal debris, Arrochar has only two obvious claims to fame. These are extravagantly superior toilets, and a magnificent view of the deservedly popular hill called Ben Arthur, better known as the Cobbler – ‘The Jewel in the Crown of the Arrochar Alps’ – as one wit from the Glasgow climbing fraternity used to call it.

The Cobbler occupies a unique place in the history of Scottish climbing, for it was the focal point of its ‘great proletarian revolution’. This was the time during the ’30s and ’40s when the young Clydeside apprentices and their unemployed counterparts took up the then largely middle-class sport of rock climbing, in order to escape the dreariness of the dole or the mundane world of work. It was on the Cobbler, in the late ’40s, that the great genius of John Cunningham and his Creag Dhu contemporaries first became apparent, and it was there that Hamish MacInnes, probably to the dismay of many traditionalists, started experimenting with pitons and other pieces of ironmongery that look suspiciously like bits of motor bike.

Today, with most climbers and walkers having access to cars, the Cobbler is a place to visit only for a day. However, in the 1930s and up until the 1960s, many people, eager for time on the hill, relied on boat, bus or hitch-hiking. As those methods of transport were slow and required relatively high expenditure of time, the Cobbler, when you got there, was a place considered worthy of a weekend’s attention. For many such week-end adventurers, accommodation was a problem. True, the Scottish Youth Hostel Association had a hostel in Glen Loin before they moved down the Loch to Ardgarten. But hostels cost money, and then there were all those rules and regulations. Tents could have solved the problem, but tents were a luxury that even the employed could not afford, and anyway they were heavy and they had to be carried about.

The Narnain Boulders

With hostels and tents excluded on the grounds of cost and inconvenience, attention turned to shelter that was both handy and free. Some favoured the loft of a barn belonging to a generous local farmer called Mr. Paterson, and though it was popular up until the mid-1960s, it was considered to be a rather unheathy place to stay. Crossing the courtyard could be hazardous. A young climber, tired from a day’s work or hiking, could be attacked by small hairy dogs intent on savaging his heels. If he survived that, he then climbed the dark stairs to the evil-smelling loft where, more likely than not, he could be confronted by some of the biggest and boldest rats known to man. Unabashed by the new arrival, they would continue about their business – stealing loaves of bread from hikers’ packs, racing around the corrugated iron sheets that covered the holes in the rotten floor, or holding wrestling contests that used to keep everyone awake at night.

Regulars at the loft used to talk about those rats as if they were merely another group with whom they shared the accommodation. Indeed, it used to be said that they wore ‘bunnets and boots’ – attire that was common to all the habituees. Others did not see the rats in the same light. One group, thinking about spending a night in the loft, turned back down the stairs when they saw the beasts. On walking away, one of their number held out his hands in the exaggerated manner used by disappointed, if not entirely honest, anglers when describing the ‘one that got away’, and was heard to say, ‘Imagine being feart of wee things like that!’

The other aspect that used to put people off the barn was that if the loft was full, there was always the temptation to sleep in a hay wagon that stood directly under the landing at the top of the stairs. The danger was that the young athletes, faculties impaired because of over-refreshment in the local bars, used to crawl out of the loft onto the landing to be sick on the innocents below. Even the rats were not too keen on that behaviour.

The barn declined in popularity, and was dealt a lethal blow one fine summer’s morning when one of its regulars appeared at the bottom of the crags on the Cobbler’s North Peak with large red lumps on his body and face. Among the horrified onlookers was one man who, despite the fact that his medical expertise was based only on a recent reading of a book about the Black Death, nevertheless felt confident enough to declare that the poor guy must have that disease, and that he must have caught it from the rats in the loft. As the afflicted one ran down the hill in terror to find a doctor, the others in the stunned crowd vowed never to use the barn again.

For those who wished to avoid such accommodation made sordid by rats and delinquent climbers, the solution lay in the many caves and stone shelters found in the Cobbler area. Most of these involve an uphill climb, but for those who did not want to expend such energy, or if the weather was bad, the obvious choice was the collection of caves and boulders known as the ‘Arrochar Caves’. These are found by following the Sugach Road, which starts near the police station on the north side of Loch Long, round to the forestry workers’ wooden houses. From there a dirt road heads up Glen Loin, turning left then right before passing a white cottage which used to be occupied by a forestry worker, but which now looks like somebody’s holiday home. The end of the road is marked by a gate beyond which there is a pylon. From this a path leads diagonally through the forest to the caves.

The journey to the Caves after nightfall was, at one time, made very hazardous by the existence of a very old and obnoxious forestry horse, whose idea of a good time was to gallop at unwary travellers as they crossed his field. This only happened at night, and many a hiker was frightened out of his wits as he heard the thundering hooves approaching from an indeterminate direction through the blackness of a moonless night.

On one such night a small band of climbers was making its way across this particular field with the aid of a torch so useless that it gave about as much light as a red-hot nail, when suddenly the surrounding silence was destroyed by the approach of this demented nag. The panic and confusion of the torch-holder was not helped when one of his companions asked for the torch. Thinking that his friend was going to save them by doing something fabulous and brave, like flashing the torch in the eyes of the malevolent creature, he handed it over gladly. The trust of this optimistic fellow was not rewarded, for as soon as his friend had the torch, he disappeared into the darkness, leaving the others to scatter in blind panic, hopefully out of the way of the approaching disaster.

The Caves, a wonderfully strange and convoluted place, though full of dampness, were extremely popular in wet weather. They not only offered shelter and wood for comforting fires, they also provided the bored climber with a variety of diffcult ‘boulder problems’ on which he could practice his craft. The chambers most often used for sleeping in are found at the top end of the Caves, and to reach one of the most popular simply turn left at the end of the path described above. Where progress is blocked by a large rock wall, the cave is on the right. By passing through this chamber and into a rock corridor, one comes to the most famous of the Arrochar Caves. It is instantly recognisable as the large rectangular gallery in the rock about halfway up the left hand face. To gain access to it some simple rock climbing must be done up the arrete on the right. Inside, the floor of the cave is split into two, and on the upper level of the left hand side near the back, there is a small hole which, with a bit of a squeeze, allows access to an underground chamber. From here an easy descent can be made to a small underground loch. Back in the rock corridor, it is possible to follow this around to another popular chamber used by generations of climbers as a bedroom. And, indeed, although the recent growth of forest makes it difficult to follow Borthwick’s description, this may be the cave whose social life in the 1930s was so vividly recreated in his book Always a little Further.

There are some disadvantages in using the Caves. Water has to be carried over very rough ground from the stream to the northeast of the main chambers. Sometimes the caves are very damp, and they can drip during wet weather, with the result that the accommodation, even the large caves described above, could be a lot less spacious than would at first be thought. Moreover, in order to avoid the drips, would-be sleepers often found they had to lie in a very contorted fashion. Despite these drawbacks, weekends in the Caves were always lively, for there was always plenty of people with whom to share a fire, sing songs and swap tales of derring do. The breed of men who spent their time there was not the kind who were only interested in the climbing, and who would, therefore, disappear back to Glasgow if the weather was inclement. On the contrary, they considered themselves not mere climbers, but ‘weekenders’ – men who enjoyed getting out into the country and living rough. They took pride in their ability to make themselves comfortable in adverse conditions, and they enjoyed the company of like minds with whom they could have a bit of ‘crack’. Because of this, initiates hungry for tales of mountain characters and adventures could, in those caves, first hear about Tam’s crowd and the great bus conductress pie assault caper. Or they may have listened in awe to the almost mythical tales of the trials of strength between Wee Davy of the Creag Dhu and Big Jim of the S.M.C. Another favorite they might have heard was the one about Black Rab and the Burning of the Boat.

If they wanted to escape the dampness of the Caves, a small party could always make their way up the path on the right hand side of the Allt Sugach burn. At about 300 feet above the floor of Glen Loin, diagonally across from a large rhododendron bush, they would find a delightfully dry cave that accommodates three or four people. This cave used to be called the Secret Doss. Hikers and climbers new to the delights of the area got to hear about it from more knowledgeable kindred spirits who, on assessing the genuinesss of the newcomer, would tell him of the secret, warning him ‘It’s a Secret Doss, so keep it under your hat.’ After some time, however, the newcomer would find that this was not exactly the best kept secret in the world, for almost everyone he met knew about it. The location of the cave is even described in the latest rock climbing guide to Arrochar, so the Secret Doss is no secret any more.

Not everyone wanted to stay down in the glen, and the weather was not always so bad that shelter had to be sought in the Caves. For many, fine weather meant shouldering a full pack and heading up the hill to stay under one of the boulders found in what was known as the Cobbler Corrie. One of the most popular of those dosses is found under the most southerly of the two huge Narnain Stones, which, during some primeval disruption, must have trundled down from Ben Narnain to their present position on the east side of the Buttermilk Burn on the present-day path to the Cobbler.

Unfortunately, no-one seems to use this as a doss nowadays. The protecting wall which used to leave only a small hole for entry has been broken down and the floor, littered with debris left by thoughtless day visitors, is very muddy. Up until the mid-1960s, however, this place provided a solid and dry shelter for the mountain traveller and as a consequence it buzzed with life after other visitors had dropped down into the glen below.

The principal pastime of an evening was contests of strength and balance upon the hard problems found on the boulders. Here the dictum that climbing is a non-competitive sport was proven to be false. Groups of climbers tended to concentrate on one problem at a time, each member having a go in turn, watched intently by the others. Not only did the climber have to contend with the difficulty of the problem, but his concentration was usually assaulted by ‘advice’ which was designed for the amusement of the onlookers and the distraction of the combatant. Thus, just as he would be inching his left foot towards a minute hold, eyes full of sweat, arms rapidly disintegrating into painful and useless appendages, he would hear someone enquire about the stability of the foot on which he was standing. Often this was enough to send the unfortunate climber clattering down onto what could be a muddy landing.

The sleeping accommodation under the boulder was limited and had to be carefully arranged, with the smallest being slotted into the tapering recess at the back of the cave. Such a claustrophobic position was distasteful to some, and there is a famous story of the time when five young Glasgow climbers packed themselves under the stone for the night. Everything was peaceful enough until the small hours when everyone was wrenched from sleep by a cry from deep within the recess. ‘The boulder’s falling! The boulder’s falling!’ With hearts thumping in their chests each man suddenly threw his hands against the roof in an attempt to stop the imaginary catastrophe. Then, realising that they must have looked very peculiar lying on their backs straining to stop, with their bare hands, a multiton piece of rock from falling on them, they simultaneously burst into laughter that was both hysterical and relieved.

A few hundred yards above the Narnain Boulders the path to the Cobbler crosses the Buttermilk Burn, and then climbs the hill above diagonally until it attains some flat ground. Above is a rather rotten, shallow gully that splits a rockface in two. About halfway up the gully, on the right hand face, is a slight overhang which gives some protection to a sleeping platform known as ‘Martin’s Doss.’ Martin, the man who made this place his own, was a burly, wild-looking chap who hiked around the Arrochar hills dressed in a Glengarry and kilt. He must have been hardy, for this doss does not give much protection from the elements. Accordingly, ‘Martin’s’ was not all that popular, used only when other dosses were occupied, or by people who had run out of steam when heading for the ‘High Doss’.

However, it was occupied one moonless night by a bizarre group of climbers who professed a belief in black magic. They were always going off into bothies with their black candles and their inverted crosses, saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards in order to get old Beelzebub to show himself. Maybe they wanted to sell their souls in exchange for being good climbers, but whatever it was they were never successful in their enterprise.

On the night in question, the Narnain Boulders were occupied by some lads who were a bit sceptical, not only about blackmagic but also about the converts’ strength of belief. To test their theory, they waited until it was quite dark before making their way silently to the flat ground below Martin’s. There they spread themselves out in a semi-circle. Each man had a torch and periodically he would hold it under his face and turn it on for a few seconds. On the platform above the occupants were too busy with their hocus-pocus to notice at first, but unease began to creep through the group as one by one they caught a fleeting glimpse of a light-distorted visage apparently suspended in dark space. Eventually, after several sightings the mood of the group changed from unease to terror, and finally one tall, skinny lad with a pimply face began to croak: ‘Lads! He’s here – that’s him!’ This apparent but unexpected success of their devilish practices threw them into a terrible confusion, and as their hidden tormentors slipped away in the dark, there followed a heated conversation about what they should do.

The next day the outcome of their debate, along with an account of the night’s happenings were reported to their apparently naive ‘friends’ from the Narnain Boulders. Much to the latters’ suppressed delight, they heard how it was decided a sacrifice had to be made, and that a particular wee, harmless man should go out and confront this apparition. He went out reluctantly, protesting all the time, his eyes like silver dollars. And of course he found nothing. Despite this, the events of the previous night were reported with some satisfaction by the Martin’s crowd, who saw it as some kind of vindication of their beliefs. The others merely nodded and kept the secret of the apparitions to themselves.

For those with the serious intent of climbing on the famous crags of the Cobbler, the High Doss seems to be an obvious choice of accommodation. The High Doss is the collective name for the two high altitude residences found under the two largest boulders of the corrie formed by the Cobbler’s Centre and North Peaks. These are probably the best caves on the hill, not only because of the standard of protection from the elements afforded by them, but also because of the access they give to the many fine climbs on the Cobbler. The South Peak boasts Nimlin’s Direct, Bow Crack, Ardgarten Arete and Gladiators Groove, while among the very finest of the North Peak are the Recess Route, Chimney Arete, Echo Crack, Direct Direct, Wether Wall and Club Crack. The last named is a very hard climb, famous for the fact that, until recently, it had only been climbed by members of the Creag Dhu Mountaineering Club. Worth a special mention is Punster’s Crack with its awkward step across the void at the crux, and its spectacular yet not difficult final wall. This is the one to impress the tourists on the summit of the North Peak. Through the clatter of camera shutters the climber may hear one of the admiring audience breathing the accolade, ‘Wow! A human